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Delicious Solitude
Stuck at home going out of your mind? Take a deep breath, I’ve got some ideas for you.
DIY Time is Blow Your Mind Time
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So, remember all those times when you’ve been flipping channels after your preferred form of entertainment? Hours-long binge-a-thons of your favorite show or in the wake of the big game?
Suddenly, you come across one of those cooking shows. The dish catches your eye and the TV chef isn’t a complete tool. You hang on a moment to see how they got there. Eventually, you can imagine yourself totally chowing down on this fancy feast.
But then the reality of your busy life shatters the spell. I’ve got to go to work. I’ve got to take the kids to their activities. I’ve got to go hang with the neighbors. Who the heck has time for all that gourmet craziness?
You do.
Thanks to COVID19, most of us have no particular place to go. For those who have active social lives or just don’t care for being cooped up, this can pose a bit of a problem.
That being said, consider all of those lazy hours you’ve spent in your life (even in 20-45 minute increments, with or without commercials) simply admiring the skill and care being put into dishes of every sort. All the times you’ve written it off as too much effort, too much time, too much detail…
Well, the time has come. You’ve literally got nothing better to do. You’ve got tons of time to kill and all of your usual activities have been curtailed by the shelter-in-place orders that are growing increasingly common across the face of the entire planet.
Now it’s time to dig back into whatever your particular guilty fascination happens to be.
Is it cooking? Knitting? Woodwork?
There’s something that you use as filler viewing when you’re done with the front-of-mind stuff and now it’s time to bring that to front-of-mind and give it a go.
Do you like the crazy crafters who can take an old shirt and turn it into a drawer full of tea cozies? Would you like to learn how to juggle?
Whatever it is you’ve been pushing off until 🌤️ someday 🌻, it’s time. Today is 🌤️ someday 🌻. So was yesterday. So is every day for the foreseeable future.
It is now 🌤️ someday 🌻.
Pick a hobby and get on with it.
How to make Mead – Viking Blood – Cherry Mead
Getting Studious
Relaxing Bossa Nova & Jazz Music For Study – Smooth Jazz Music – Background Music
If you’re in too much of a funk to bother with side projects, have a listen to the jazz video ☝️ right up there. It will definitely help you find your mellow place.
Getting in a contemplative mood can help you relax from all the tension of the cabin fever that’s been imposed on us all. Being in a studious frame of mind can help us focus on what it is we plan to do when the restrictions are lifted and we can get back to all the hubbub that we suddenly find that we miss.
Well, some of us anyway. I’m not that guy. Maybe you aren’t either.
If that’s the case, being stuck at home with nothing better to do is a perfect opportunity to figure out what you’d rather be doing. There is an entire world of possibilities out there, folks.
If you’ve been stuck at a dead-end job that frustrates the crap out of you, now is exactly the right time to determine whether or not it’s worth going back to. Maybe dust off your resume. Maybe renew your passion for whatever landed you there in the first place. Both options are completely valid.
Maybe the problem is you. Maybe you’re just going through the motions. Maybe you actually like what you do but the passion has been smothered by the trivial details involved in doing it. Maybe you can figure out how to attend to the administrative dreck in such a way that it doesn’t interfere with the work that you actually love doing. There are plenty of videos on YouTube that can help you with efficiency.
If you’ve never heard of the Pareto Principle, it boils down to the simple fact that 80% of your results tend to come from 20% of your activity. By focusing on the stuff that actually produces results, you can be that much more effective at your job.
On the flip side, the stuff that comes across as a time-waster but needs to be done anyway can probably be automated in some way.
The next time you’re faced with some mind-numbing administrative task, think about how it can be automated. Whether it’s something as simple as creating a checklist that you can literally tick the boxes on (did that, did that, did that, done) or creating a kind of template in your word processor (or having your friendly, neighborhood IT guy do it for you) that can do repetitive tasks automatically, there’s always a workaround.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I’m sure that everyone else hates doing repetitive administrative tasks as much as you.
Focus on that thing I said: There’s always a workaround.
As an IT guy, I frequently had to figure out how to help people do things they didn’t particularly want to do. Sometimes it was a word processor template. Sometimes it was a spreadsheet with calculations built into it. Sometimes, it was a complete piece of software with a database and magic buttons.
Whatever it was, coming up with the solution required a bit of creativity and the application of the Pareto Principle. Getting the most out of the least amount of effort was the name of the game.
I implore you to take this hiatus from the hustle and bustle that you’re accustomed to and consider what is possible. How can you do what you do more effectively when you’re finally allowed to get back to it. I think this will help you to appreciate and perform the work you do all the more once you get back to it.
Art of the Possible
Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible. ~Ray Bradbury
Classic SciFi of the sort Mr. Bradbury writes is based on seeing a problem in society and asking “What If“. Sometimes it presents a possible solution and examines the ramifications in fictional prose. Sometimes it exaggerates the problem and examines the extent of the problem if it’s left unsolved.
For me, I’ve always been inclined towards escapism. I like to think about “What If” something completely implausible was factual. What If there were actually superheroes? What If there was a world that was like a D&D campaign? What If we went to space and found it was already claimed by people who had left Earth in an earlier epoch?
Hard SciFi tends to obsess about specific technologies or engage in quasi-masturbatory examination of alien artifacts. That’s not my jam.
I tend toward epic fantasy and space opera. I’m more interested in the characters than the science. I think a lot of people are.
Not to denigrate the writers or readers of those genres, it’s just not my thing. Neither is basketball, video games or canned peas. There are plenty of people who like those. There might even be people who are into all three (yuck). It’s just not for me, and that’s okay.
As an avid escapist, I strive to create plausible stories out of factually impossible scenarios. We don’t really have superheroes. The Middle Ages were nothing like a D&D campaign. Space is (probably) largely unoccupied and the few exoplanets we’ve identified will take quite some time to get to unless someone can make the Alcubierre warp drive actually work. Of course, you’ll want a Cannae Drive so you don’t have to waste a lot of space onboard carrying fuel for thrust.
Be that as it may, the hypotheticals involved in putting people in those imaginary settings are worthy of exploring. Well, it is to me.
The thing is, all fiction is imaginary. No matter how grounded in “reality” you strive to be, you’ll never capture actual reality in your prose. You can’t help but inject your own opinions, biases or hopes into any work of fiction. It is, by definition, fake.
To be completely honest so is “non-fiction”. Sure, you’re recounting historically factual instances. The event occurred. Recounting it can never really encompass what actually happened. People’s perceptions can be skewed by the trauma of the scenario. Nobody can literally recount their actual thoughts at the time. Even in the first person, you tend to paraphrase yourself. Whether for brevity or embellishment or unclear recollection, we can’t help adjusting the story.
Nevertheless, escapist fiction is my thing. That is the value I bring to the world these days.
The current plan is an eight novel series that explores the progression of my superhero group, The Sentinels, from a comic nerd’s passion project through tumultuous times. I’ve started working on an encyclopedic wiki for the site. Once I have some of that squared away, I’ll let the site go live. The important thing is to get on with my writing and get those novels published.
I’ve already done this once, so it won’t be a problem to get this done. Rome wasn’t built in a day, though. So, hold your horses. I’m trying to do a good job on this thing so it sells well and garners a decent fan base.
Just chill a while. Take up a hobby or something, yeah?
That’s rather a lot to say for Hump Day, I suppose. I hope you actually take the time to indulge in a guilty pleasure, a new hobby or even just rethink your daily doings a bit. It’s not like you’ve actually got anything better to do, right?